Intelligence in Plants and Animals / Being a New Edition of the Author's Privately Issued "Soul and Immortality."

by Thomas G. Gentry

SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST.

Among organic beings in a state of nature there is some individual variability. This is an admission about which there can be no dispute. But the mere existence of individual variability and of a few well-marked varieties, though necessary as the foundation for the work, assists us but little in understanding how species originate in nature. Those exquisite adaptations of one part of the organization to another part, and to the conditions of life, and of one organic being to another being, which we know to exist, seem as mysteries. We see them in the humblest parasite that clings to the hairs of a quadruped or the feathers of a bird, in the structure of the beetle that dives through the water, and in the plumed seed that is wafted by the gentlest breeze. In short, we see beautiful adaptations everywhere and in every part of the organic world. And yet, how few have paused while admiring these beautiful and wonderful co-adaptations to ask themselves the question: How have these been perfected?

If the existence of any well-marked varieties be admitted, how is it that these varieties, which may be denominated incipient species, become ultimately converted into good and distinct species, which in the generality of cases obviously differ from each in a greater degree than do the varieties of the same species? How do these groups of species, which constitute what are authoritatively called genera, and which differ from each other more than do the species of the same genus, arise? All these results, as will presently be seen, follow from the Struggle for Existence. Owing to this struggle, all variations, no matter how slight they may be, or from what cause soever they may proceed, will, if they be in any degree profitable to the individuals of a species in their infinitely complex relations to other organic beings and their physical conditions of life, unavoidably conduce to the preservation of such individuals, and generally be inherited by the offspring. The offspring, too, will thus have a better chance of surviving, for, of the many individuals of a species that are periodically born, but a very small number can survive. That principle, by which each slight variation, if useful to the individual, is preserved, has been termed Natural Selection by Darwin, in order to distinguish it from the selection which is exercised by man over the plants and animals which he has brought under subjection for his own wants. But the expression—Survival of the Fittest—so frequently used by Spencer, is more accurate, and sometimes equally convenient. Man can certainly produce great results by this power, and can adapt, through the accumulation of slight but useful variations given to him by the hand of nature, organic beings to his own uses. But Natural Selection, as is well known, is a power incessantly ready for action, and is as infinitely superior to man’s feeble efforts as the works of nature are to those of art.

All organic beings are exposed to severe competition. Nothing is easier than to admit in words the truth of the universal struggle for life, or more difficult than constantly to bear this conclusion, which has been reached through the investigations and researches of De Candolle, Lyell, Herbert, Darwin and others, in mind. Unless, however, it be thoroughly ingrained in the mind, the whole economy of nature, with every fact on distribution, rarity, abundance, extinction and variation, will be but dimly perceived or quite misunderstood. We behold the face of nature radiant with gladness, and food everywhere in excessive abundance, but we do not see that the birds which are happily singing round us mostly live on insects or seeds, and are thus constantly destroying life, or we fail to remember how largely these songsters, or their eggs, or their nestlings, are destroyed by birds and beasts of prey. Yes, we do not always bear in mind that, though food may now be superabundant, it is not so at all seasons of each recurring year. The term, Struggle for Existence, must be used in a large and metaphorical sense. It must be construed to include the dependence of one being on another, and also not only the life of the individual but also its success in leaving offspring. Two carnivores, in a time of scarcity of food, may be truly said to struggle with each other for maintenance of life. But a plant on the edge of a desert is said to struggle for life against the drought, though, properly speaking, it is dependent for its existence upon the moisture. A plant, however, that annually produces many thousand seeds of which on an average only one comes to maturity, may in a much truer sense be said to struggle with the plants of the same and other kinds which already invest the ground. While the mistletoe is dependent on the apple and some other trees, yet it cannot be said, unless in a far-fetched sense, to struggle with these trees, for, if too many of these parasites are found upon the same tree, it will certainly languish and die. Several seedling mistletoes, however, growing close together upon the same branch, may more truly be said to struggle with each other.

From the high rate at which all organic beings tend to increase, there must inevitably follow a Struggle for Existence. Every being which, during its natural lifetime, produces several eggs or seeds, must necessarily suffer destruction during some part of that period, and during some season or occasional year, otherwise, on the principle of Geometrical Increase, its numbers would become so inordinately excessive that no country would be able to support its product. Therefore, as more individuals are produced than can possibly survive, there must be in every case a Struggle for Existence, either one individual struggling with another of the same kind, or with individuals of distinct kinds or species, or with the conditions of the environment. This is the doctrine of Malthus applied with manifold force to the entire vegetable and animal kingdoms. Although some species may be now increasing at a very high rate in numbers, yet all cannot do so, for the earth would not be able to contain them. Slow-breeding man has doubled in twenty-five years, and should he go on at this rate for a few thousand years, there would literally not be standing room for his progeny. It has been calculated that, if an annual plant produced only two seeds, and their seedlings next year produced two, and the same rate of increase was kept up for twenty years, there would be a million of plants as the result. Even the elephant, which is reckoned the slowest breeder of all known animals, would after a period of from seven hundred and forty to seven hundred and fifty years leave nearly nineteen million elephants as descendants from the first pair.

Much better evidence than mere theoretical calculations are not wanting on this subject. Instances are recorded of the astonishingly rapid increase of various animals in a state of nature, when conditions have been favorable to them, during two or three succeeding seasons. More striking, however, is the evidence from domestic animals that have run wild in several parts of the world. Were not the statements of the rate of increase of cattle and horses in South America, and latterly in Australia, where millions now abound, well authenticated, they would have been incredible. Cases could be mentioned of introduced plants that have become quite common throughout entire islands in a period of less than twelve years. Several of these plants, the cardoon and a rare thistle, which were introduced from Europe, clothe square leagues of the surface of the wide plains of the La Plata almost to the exclusion of all other plants; and there are plants which now range in India, from Cape Comorin to the Himalaya, which have been imported from America since its discovery. In all such cases, and endless instances could be adduced, no intelligent person supposes that their fertility has been increased in any sensible degree by change of habitat, the obvious explanation being that the conditions of environment have been very favorable, and that there has consequently been less destruction of old and young, and that nearly all the latter have been enabled to breed. The extraordinarily rapid increase and wide diffusion of naturalized productions in new homes, a result which never fails to evoke surprise, is only to be explained on the principle of the Geometrical Ratio of Increase. As in nature almost every plant produces seed, and there are very few animals that do not annually pair, therefore we can confidently assert that all plants and animals are tending to increase in a geometrical ratio; that all would most rapidly stock every station in which they could in any way exist, and that the tendency to increase must be checked by destruction at some period of life. Among our larger domestic animals we see no great destruction falling on them. We forget that thousands are annually slaughtered for food, and that in a natural state an equal number would have to be disposed of in some way or other. Between organisms which annually produce seeds or eggs by the thousands, and those which produce extremely few, the only difference is that the slow breeders would require a few more years to people, under favorable conditions, a whole district, let it be ever so large. But a couple of eggs are laid by the condor, while the ostrich lays a score. Yet in the same country the condor may be the more abundant of the two. The Fulmer petrel lays but a single egg, yet it is believed to be the most numerous bird in the world. A large number of eggs is of some importance to those species which depend upon a rapidly-fluctuating quantity of food, for it permits them to increase rapidly in number; but the real importance of a large number of eggs or seeds is to make up for the great destruction that goes on at some period of life, and this period in the vast majority of cases is an early one. If an animal can in any way protect its own eggs or young, a small number may be produced, and the average stock be kept up; but if many eggs or young are destroyed, then many must be produced or the species will become extinct. Therefore, the average number of any animal or plant depends, though only indirectly, upon the number of its eggs or seeds. We should never forget, in taking a survey of nature, that every single organic being around us may be said to be striving to the utmost to augment its members; that each lives by a struggle at some period of its existence, and that heavy destruction falls either on the young or old during each generation or at recurrent intervals. Let any check be lightened, or the destruction be mitigated ever so little, and the number of the species will almost instantaneously increase to any extent.

But of the nature of the checks to increase we know little, although this subject has been very ably treated by writers of eminence. Eggs or very young animals seem generally to suffer the most, but this is not invariably the case. While there is a vast destruction of the seeds of plants, but it is the seedlings which are believed to suffer the greatest, from germinating in ground already thickly stocked with other plants, and from being destroyed in large numbers by various enemies. The amount of food for each species of course determines the extreme limit to which each can increase, but very often it is not the obtaining of food, but the serving as prey to other animals which fixes the average number of a species. Thus there seems to be little doubt that the stock of partridges, grouse and hares on any large estate depends mainly on the destruction of vermin. Were not a single head of game shot during the next twenty years in England, says Darwin in substance, and no vermin were at the same time destroyed, there would in all probability be less game than at present exists, although hundreds of thousands of game animals are now annually killed for the market. In some cases, on the other hand, as in the case of the elephant, none are destroyed by beasts of prey, for even the tiger in India, bold and venturesome as he is known to be, rarely dares to attack a young elephant protected by its mother. Climate, also, plays an important part in determining the average number of a species, and periodical seasons of extreme cold or drought are seemingly the most effective checks of all. The action of climate appears at first sight to be altogether independent of the Struggle for Existence; but in so far as it chiefly acts in the reduction of food, it brings on the most severe struggle between the individuals, whether of the same or different species, which subsist on the same kind of fare. Even when climate, extreme cold for example, acts directly, it will be the least vigorous animals, or those which have been the poorest fed through the advancing winter, that will suffer the greatest. This will be most readily seen from what we shall now relate. When we travel from south to north, or from a damp region to a dry, we invariably see some species getting rarer and rarer by degrees, and finally disappearing. Change of climate being conspicuous, we are inclined to ascribe the entire effect to its direct action, but this is a false interpretation of the phenomenon, for we fail to remember that each species, even where it most prevails, is constantly suffering enormous destruction at some period of its existence, from enemies or competitors for the same station and food; and if these enemies or competitors be the least favored by any slight change of climate, they will necessarily increase in numbers, while the other species, each area being already stocked with inhabitants, will correspondingly decrease. And when we travel southward and see a species decreasing in numbers, we may feel reasonably sure that the cause lies quite as much in other species being favored as in this being hurt. So it is when we travel northward, though in a less degree. When we go northward, or when we ascend a mountain, we far oftener meet with stunted forms, due to the directly injurious action of climate, than we do when we go southward or descend a mountain. When, however, we reach the Arctic regions, or explore snow-capped summits, or absolute deserts, we perceive the struggle for life to be almost exclusively with the elements.

That climate operates mainly, but indirectly, in favoring other species, may be clearly seen in the prodigious numbers of garden plants that can thoroughly well endure our climate, but which can never become naturalized, inasmuch as they cannot compete with native vegetation nor resist destruction by native animals.

When a species, owing to highly favorable conditions, increases inordinately in numbers in a small tract of country, epidemics, especially in game animals, often occur, and here we have a limiting check independent of the Struggle for Existence. But some of these so-called epidemics appear to be due to parasitic worms, which have from some cause, possibly in part through ease of diffusion among the crowded animals, been disproportionately favored, and here comes in a sort of struggle between the parasite and its more illustrious prey.

But, on the other hand, as is frequently the case, a large stock of individuals of the same species, relatively to the number of its enemies, is absolutely essential to its preservation. We thus see how it is possible to raise with ease a plentiful supply of corn in our fields, because the seeds are greatly in excess of the number of birds which feed thereon. Nor can the birds, though blessed with a superabundance of food at this one season, increase in number in proportion to the supply of seed, as their numbers are checked during the winter. Any one, however, who has made the experiment, knows how troublesome it is to get seed from a few wheat or other such plants sown broad-cast in a garden. Some singular facts in nature, such as that of very rare plants being sometimes extremely abundant in the few spots where they do occur, and that of some social plants being social, or abounding in individuals, even on the extreme confines of their range, are readily explainable by this view of the necessity of a large stock of the same species for its preservation, for in such cases we may believe that a plant could only exist where the conditions of its life were so favorable that many could exist together and thus save the species from extinction.

Complex and varied are the checks and relations between organic beings which have to struggle together in the same country. In the case of every species, many different checks, some very complicated and unintelligible to man at present, acting at different periods of life, and during different seasons or years, come into play, some one check or some few being generally the most powerful, but all concurring in determining the average number or even the existence of the species. Widely-different checks sometimes act on the same species in different districts. Looking at the plants and bushes that clothe an entangled bank, we are tempted to ascribe their proportional numbers and kinds to what we call chance. But this is a very false view to take of the matter. Chance has no part in such things. They follow in obedience to laws of which we know comparatively little. When an American forest is cut down a very different vegetation springs up. Ancient Indian ruins have been observed in the southern parts of the United States, which must in former times have been cleared of trees, but which now display the same beautiful diversity and proportion of kinds as are now found in the surrounding virgin forest. What a struggle must have gone on during long centuries between the several kinds of trees, each annually scattering its seeds by the thousand, and what a war between insect and insect, and between insects, snails and other animals with birds and beasts of prey, all striving to increase, all feeding on each other, or on the trees, their seeds and their seedlings, or on the other plants which once clothed the soil, and thus checked the growth of the trees! It is easier to account for the fall of an apple from a tree, or the descent of a stone to the earth when hurled into the air, than to account for the action and reaction of the innumerable plants and animals that have determined in the course of untold centuries the proportional numbers and kinds of trees that are now found growing on these old Indian ruins. But the struggle will almost invariably be the severest between individuals of the same species, for they frequent the same districts, require the same food and are exposed to the same dangers. In the case of varieties of the same species, the struggle will generally be almost equally severe. If several varieties of wheat be sown together, and the mixed seed be re-sown, some of the varieties which best suit the soil or climate, or are naturally the most fertile, will beat the others and so yield more seed, and will consequently in a few years supplant the others. Such extremely-close varieties as the variously-colored sweet-peas must be separately harvested each year, and the seed mixed in due proportion, or the weaker kinds will steadily decrease in number and disappear. So, again, with the varieties of sheep. Certain mountain-varieties will starve out other mountain-varieties, so that they cannot be kept together. Similar results have followed from keeping together different varieties of the medicinal leech. In view of all that has been said, it is questionable whether the varieties of any of our domestic plants and animals have so exactly the same vigor, constitution and habits that the original proportions of a mixed stock could be kept up for a half-dozen generations if they were permitted to struggle together like beings in a state of nature, if the seed or young were not annually assorted.

Species of the same genus having usually, though not invariably, much similarity in habits and constitution, and always in structure, the struggle will be more severe between species of the same genus, where they come into competition with each other, than between species of distinct genera. One species of swallow has caused in certain parts of the United States the decrease of another species, just as the missel-thrush in parts of Scotland has caused the decrease of the song-thrush. The small Asiatic cockroach has everywhere in Russia driven before it its great congener, and the imported European hive-bee is rapidly exterminating in Australia the small, stingless bee, indigenous to the country. Hundreds of such cases might be cited, but we forbear. We can clearly see why the competition should be most severe between allied forms, which fill nearly the same place in the economy of nature; but it is perhaps not possible to individualize a case and say with preciseness why such species has been victorious over another in the battle of life. That the structure of every organic being is related, in the most essential yet often hidden manner to that of all the other organisms with which it comes into competition for food or residence, or from which it has to escape, or on which it preys, is a corollary of the highest importance deducible from the foregoing remarks. Very obvious is this in the structure of the teeth and talons of the tiger, and in that of the legs and claws of the parasite which clings to the hair on the tiger’s body. But in the beautifully-plumed seed of the dandelion and the flattened and fringed legs of the water-beetle the relation seems at first restricted to the elements of air and water, yet the advantage of plumed seeds undoubtedly stands in the most intimate relation to the land, being already densely clothed with other plants, so that the seeds may be widely diffused and fall on unoccupied ground, while in the water-beetle, the structure of its legs, so admirably adapted for diving, allows it to compete with other aquatic insects, to hunt for its own prey and to escape destruction by other predaceous animals. All organic beings, it will thus be seen, are not only striving to increase in numbers, but are called upon some time in their lives to struggle for existence or to suffer serious if not utter destruction. When we reflect on this struggle, we can console ourselves with the full belief that this war of nature is not incessant, that no fear is felt, that death is generally sudden, and that the vigorous, healthy and happy survive and multiply.

Seeing what a potent influence the principle of Selection has in the hands of man, in regard to variation, can it be applied in nature? We can see that it can act most effectually. But in our domestic productions the variability is not directly produced by man, for he can neither originate varieties nor prevent their occurrence. All he can do is to preserve and accumulate such as do occur. Unintentionally he exposes organic beings to new and changing conditions of life, for under domestication, plant and animal organizations become in some degree plastic, and variability ensues. Similar changes, however, do occur in nature. When it is borne in mind how infinitely complex and close-fitting are the mutual relations of all organic beings to each other, and to their environment, and consequently what infinitely-varied diversities of structure may be of advantage to each being under altered conditions, can it then be thought improbable, seeing that variations useful to man have undoubtedly occurred, that other variations useful in some way to each being in the great and complex battle of life should sometimes occur in the course of tens of thousands of generations? If such do occur, can we doubt, when it is remembered that many more individuals are born than can possibly survive, that individuals possessing any advantage, no matter how slight, over their fellows would have the best chance of surviving and of procreating their kind? Any variation, on the other hand, we may feel sure if in the least degree injurious would be rigidly destroyed. This preservation of useful and favorable variations, and the destruction of those that are injurious, is called Natural Selection, or the Survival of the Fittest. Variations neither advantageous nor deleterious would not be affected by Natural Selection, and would be left either a fluctuating element, as seen in certain polymorphic species, or would alternately become fixed, owing to the nature both of the organism and its conditions.

We shall best understand the probable cause of Natural Selection by taking a country undergoing some physical change, as of climate for example. The proportional number of its inhabitants would almost immediately undergo a change, and some of its species might become extinct. From the complex and very intimate manner in which the inhabitants of each country are bound together, we may conclude that any change in the numerical proportion of some of its inhabitants, independently of the change of climate itself, would seriously affect the others. Were the country open on its borders, new forms would certainly immigrate, and this, too, would often seriously disturb the relations of some of its former inhabitants. In the case, however, of an island, or a country hemmed in by barriers, into which new and better-adapted forms could not readily enter, we would then meet with places in the economy of nature which would assuredly be better filled up, if some of the original occupants were in some manner modified, for had the area been open to immigration, these same places would have been seized by intruders. Thus, slight modifications, which any way favored the individuals of a species, would by better adapting them to changed conditions tend to become preserved, and Natural Selection would there have free scope for the work of improvement. Changes in the conditions of life cause or excite a tendency to vary. In the foregoing case the conditions are supposed to have changed, and this would manifestly be favorable, by giving a better chance of profitable variations occurring, to Natural Selection, for unless such do occur, Natural Selection can do nothing. As man, by adding up in any given direction individual differences, can certainly produce a great result with his domestic animals and plants, so could Natural Selection, but far more easily from having an incomparably longer time for its action. No great physical change, as of climate, nor any unusual degree of isolation to check immigration, is actually necessary, it would seem, to produce new and unoccupied places for Natural Selection to fill up by modifying and improving some of the varying inhabitants, for as all the inhabitants of a country are struggling together with nicely-balanced forces, extremely-slight modifications in the structure or habits of one species would often give it an advantage over others; and still further modifications, so long as the species continued under the same conditions of life and profited by similar means of subsistence and defence, would often still further augment the advantage. No country can be mentioned whose native inhabitants are now so perfectly adapted to each other and to their environment that none could be better adapted and improved, for in all countries the natives have been so far conquered by naturalized productions as to have allowed them to take firm possession of the land. And as foreigners have thus in every country beaten some of the natives, it may be safely concluded that the latter might have been modified with profit so as to have better resisted the intruders.

A man by his methodical and unconscious means of selection can produce and has produced great results. What may not Natural Selection effect? Man can only operate on external and visible characters, but nature cares nothing for appearances, except in so far as they are beneficial to any being. She can act on every internal organ, on every shade of constitutional difference and, in fine, on the entire machinery of life. Man selects exclusively for his own advantage, but nature solely for that of the being she tends, and under her judicious selection the slightest difference of structure or constitution may well turn the nicely-balanced scale in the Struggle for Existence, and thus be preserved. As fleeting as are the wishes and efforts of man, and as short as is his earthly career, so poor, therefore, must be the results which he accomplishes when compared with those accumulated by nature during whole geological periods. Is it a wonder, then, that her productions should be far truer in character than man’s, and that they should be infinitely better adapted to the most complex conditions of life and should bear the stamp of far higher workmanship? Metaphorically speaking, Natural Selection may be said to be daily and hourly scrutinizing, throughout the world, the slightest variations, rejecting the bad, preserving and adding up the good, and silently and insensibly working, whenever and wherever opportunities occur, at the betterment of each organic being in relation to its organic and inorganic conditions of life. So slow is her work that we see nothing of the changes in progress, and only when the hand of time has marked the lapse of ages do we perceive that changes have been produced; but then so imperfect is our view into long-past geological periods, that we see only that the forms of life are now different from what they formerly were. That any great amount of modification in any point should be effected, a variety once formed must again, perhaps after a long interval of time, present individual differences of the same favorable character, and these must again be preserved, and so onward step by step. As individual differences of all kinds perpetually recur, this can hardly be considered as an unwarrantable assumption. Judged by the extent the hypothesis accords with and explains the general phenomena of nature, notwithstanding the ordinary belief that the amount of possible variation is a strictly-limited quantity, we are justified, it seems to us, in assuming that all this has actually taken place. But in looking at many small points of difference between species, which in our ignorance seem quite unimportant, we must not lose sight of the facts that climate, food and modes of life may have produced some direct effect, and also of the truth that, owing to the Law of Correlation, when one part varies, and the variations are accumulated through the Survival of the Fittest, other modifications often of the most unlooked-for nature will ensue.

As under domestication these variations are known to appear at a particular period of life, and tend to reappear in the offspring at the same period, so, in a state of nature, it is reasonable to infer that Natural Selection will be enabled to act on and modify organic beings at any age, by the accumulation of variations useful at that age, and by their inheritance at a corresponding age. Thus, if it be profitable to a plant to have its seeds more and more widely disseminated by the wind, there can be no greater difficulty in conceiving this to be effected through Natural Selection than in conceiving the increasing and improving of the down in the pods on his cotton-trees by a wise selection upon the part of a cotton-planter. Natural Selection may modify and adapt the larva of an insect to a score of contingencies, wholly different from those which affect the mature insect, and these modifications through Correlation may work changes in the structure of the adult. On the other hand, modifications of the adult may affect the structure of the larva, but in all such cases Natural Selection will insure that these changes shall not be injurious, for, if they were so, the extinction of the species would be the inevitable result. Thousands of instances might be given to show the influence which Natural Selection, or Sexual Selection, which is only a less vigorous phase of the former, has had all through the ages in the adaptation of life to the places in nature which it was intended to occupy in pursuance of the plan formulated by the Great Originator and Designer of the Universe.

Despite the imperfection of the geological record, which has been urged as a serious objection to the theory of descent with modification, sensible, intelligent, educated men no longer doubt that species have all changed, and that they have changed in the way required, for they have changed slowly and in a graduated manner. This is clearly seen in the fossil remains from consecutive formations being invariably much more closely allied to each other than are those from widely-separated formations. It is true geological research does not yield those infinitely fine gradations between past and present species which the theory of Natural Selection requires, but when it is remembered that only a small portion of the world has been geologically explored; that only organic beings of certain classes, at least in any great number, can be preserved in a fossil condition; that many species when once formed never undergo any further change, but become extinct without leaving any modified descendants; that dominant and widely-ranging species vary the most and the most frequently, and that varieties are often at first only local, it is not at all surprising that the discovery of intermediate links to any considerable extent should not have been made. Local varieties, as is well known, will not diffuse themselves into other and distant localities until they have become very much modified and improved, and when they have thus diffused themselves, and are discovered in a geological formation, they will appear as if suddenly created there, and will simply be ranked as new species. Besides, formations have often been intermittent in their accumulation, and their duration has probably been shorter than the average duration of specific forms. And as successive formations in most cases are separated from each other by blank intervals of time of considerable length, and as fossiliferous formations thick enough to withstand future degradation can as a general rule be accumulated only where much sediment is laid down in the subsiding bed of the ocean, it follows that during the alternate periods of elevation and of stationary level the record will generally be blank or devoid of fossil remains. During these latter periods there will doubtless be more variability in the forms of life, and during the periods of subsidence a greater amount of extinction. Now, as geology plainly declares that each land has undergone great physical changes, we have a right to expect that organic beings have varied under nature in the same manner as they have varied under domestication, and such have scientific study and research found to be the case. And if there has been any variability under nature, such a fact would seem unaccountable unless Natural Selection, or the Survival of the Fittest, did not come into play. Upon the view that variations have occurred in nature and have been preserved and accumulated by Natural Selection, and not in the ordinary view of independent creation, we can understand why the specific characters, or those by which the species of the same genus differ from each other, should be more variable than the generic characters in which they all agree. Inexplicable as is the occasional appearance of stripes on the shoulders and legs of the different equine species and their hybrids on the theory of creation, yet how simply is the fact explained if we believe that they are all descended from a striped progenitor just as the different domestic breeds of pigeons are descended from the blue and barred rock-pigeons. Why, for example, should the color of a flower be more likely to vary in any one species of a genus, if the other species, supposed to have been created independently, have differently-colored flowers, than if all the species of the genus have the same colored flowers? On the theory that species are only well-marked varieties, of which the characters have become in a high degree permanent, the fact is intelligible, for they have already varied in certain characters since they branched off from a common progenitor, and by these characters they have come to be specifically distinct from each other. Therefore, these same characters would be more likely again to vary than the generic characters which have been inherited without change for an enormous period of time.

Upon the theory of Natural Selection, or the Survival of the Fittest, with its contingencies of extinction and divergence of character, we can see how it is that all past and present organic beings can be arranged within a few classes, in groups subordinate to groups, and with the extinct groups often falling in between the recent groups. We can see how it is that the mutual affinities of the forms within each class are so complex and diversified, and only adaptive characters, though of superior importance to the beings, are of scarcely any significance in classification, while those derived from rudimentary parts, though of no recognized service, are often of high classificatory value, and only embryological characters are frequently the most valuable of all. The real affinities of all organisms, in contradistinction to their adaptive likenesses, are due to inheritance or community of descent. Hence, a natural system of classification is a genealogical arrangement, with the acquired grades of difference, denoted by varieties, species, genera, families, etc., and their lines of descent have to be discovered by the most permanent characters, whatever they may be and how little of vital importance they may possess.

That species are immutable productions, which was until quite recently the current belief by laymen and naturalists, was almost unavoidable so long as the world was considered to be of short duration. But now that some idea has been acquired of the time that has elapsed since the beginning of earth-life, we are too apt to assume, without proof, that the geologic record is so complete, that it would have afforded us some plain evidence of the mutation of species, if they had undergone mutation. But the principal cause of our unwillingness to admit that one species has given birth to other and distinct species, is that we are always slow in admitting any great change of which we do not discern the intermediate steps. Just such a difficulty was felt by many geologists when Lyell first insisted that long lines of inland cliffs had been produced, and great valleys excavated, by the agencies which are still at work in the earth. No effort of mind can adequately grasp the meaning of even ten million of years, nor add up and perceive the full effects of the many slight variations to which species have been subjected during an almost infinite number of generations. The day, however, is not distant, when mankind will have become just as thoroughly convinced that species have been modified during a long course of descent, mainly through the Natural Selection of innumerous successive, slight and favorable variations as they are that the attraction of gravitation is an important element in the maintenance of the harmony that exists among the planetary spheres. That the law of the attraction of gravity, which is perhaps the greatest discovery ever made by man, is subversive of natural and revealed religion, which was at one time maintained by a no more distinguished person than Leibnitz, is now no longer objected to, even though its discoverer was unable to explain what is the essence of the principle he had discovered. No nobler conception of Deity could be entertained than that which attributes to Him the creation of a few original forms capable of self-development into other and needful forms, or the origination de novo of these simple forms from inorganic nature. It places a higher estimate upon His Omnipotence than the belief that He required a fresh act of creation to supply the voids caused by the action of His laws. That science is as yet unable to throw any light on the far higher problem of the essence or origin of life, should constitute no valid objection to the theory of descent.

When all beings are looked upon not as special creations, but as the lineal descendants of some beings that existed long before the first bed of ancient Siluria was deposited, they seem to become ennobled. Judging from the past, we think it safe to conclude that no existing species will transmit its unaltered likeness to a distant futurity. Few, very few living species will transmit progeny of any kind, for the manner in which all organisms are grouped shows that the majority of species in each genus, and all the species in many genera, have left no descendants, but have become utterly extinct. It will only be the common and widely-spread species, belonging to the larger and dominant groups within each class, that will ultimately prevail and procreate new and dominant species. Since all the living forms of life are the lineal descendants of forms that lived long anterior to the Silurian epoch, it is reasonably certain that the ordinary succession by generation has never once been broken, and that no cataclysmic disaster has laid waste the entire world. Therefore, we may look into the future with some confidence of an equally secure and inappreciably enduring earth-life. And as Natural Selection operates solely by and for the good of each being, all corporeal and mental endowments will tend to progress toward perfection.

When we contemplate a tangled bank, with innumerable plants of diverse kinds, and many-voiced birds singing in concert, or waging destruction on manifold insects that are flitting about, or the long, slimy worm that has come up from its underground retreat, we are lost in wonder and admiration, and can only reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and so strangely and intricately dependent on each other, have all been evolved by laws that act all around us. These are the laws of Growth with Reproduction; Inheritance, which is almost implied by reproduction; Variability from the action, direct and indirect, of the conditions of life, and from use and disuse; a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Existence, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, or Survival of the Fittest, entailing thereby Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less-improved forms. And thus, from the war of nature, and from famine and death, have arisen the higher mammalia, in which man, the summa summarum of life, is included. He occupies the summit, toward which the efforts of millions of buried ages seem to have been tending. There is a grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, originally breathed, by the operation of the natural laws, into one or a few forms of life, and that, while the earth, in obedience to the fixed principle of gravitation, has gone cycling on, endless forms, most beautiful and most wonderful, have been, and are being, evolved from so simple a beginning.

PALÆOLITHIC MEN ATTACKING CAVE BEAR.
Mammoth, Woolly Rhinoceros, Musk-Sheep and Irish Stag in Background.

While thus it has been shown that life has been progressive, successive forms of life being the result of modification through descent, those faring the best in the Struggle for Existence surviving, by reason of some advantage, physical or otherwise, gained over their competitors, yet little, bearing specially upon man, has been expressed in this chapter. After he had acquired those intellectual and moral faculties which largely distinguish him from the lower animals in a state of nature, he would have been but little liable to have his bodily structure modified through Natural Selection or any other means, for man is enabled, through his mental faculties, “to keep with an unchanged body in harmony with the changing universe.” He has a most wonderful power of adapting his habits to altered conditions of life. Tools, weapons and various devices are invented by him for the procurement of food and bodily defence. And when he migrates into a colder climate, he uses clothes, builds sheds and makes fire, and by its aid cooks food that would otherwise be indigestible. The lower animals, however, must have their bodily structure modified in order to survive under greatly changed conditions. They must be rendered stronger, or acquire more effective teeth or claws, or both, if they would successfully defend themselves from new enemies, or they must be reduced in proportions, so as to escape detection and danger. When they remove into colder climates they must become clothed in thicker fur, or have their constitutions altered, for failure to be thus modified must ultimately result in their ceasing to exist. But in the case of man’s intellectual and moral faculties, as has been shown by Wallace, it is widely different. These faculties are quite variable, and there is reason to believe that the variations tend to be inherited. Therefore, if they were formerly of high importance to palæolithic man and his ape-like progenitors, they would have been perfected or advanced through Natural Selection. But of the high importance of the intellectual faculties there can be no question, for man owes to them in a great measure his preëminent position in the world. It can be seen that, in the rudest state of society, the individuals who were the most sagacious, and who were the most skilful in the invention of weapons or traps, and who were the best able to defend themselves, would rear the greatest number of offspring, and that the tribes which included the largest number of men possessed of such superior endowments would increase in number and eventually supplant the other tribes. Numbers depend primarily on the means of subsistence, and this on the physical nature of the country, but in a much higher degree upon the arts therein practised. As a tribe increases and is victorious, it is often still further increased by the absorption of other tribes, and after a time the tribes which are thus absorbed into another tribe assume, as has been remarked by Mr. Maine in his “Ancient Law,” that they are the co-descendants of the same ancestors. Stature and strength in the men of a tribe are also of importance in its success, and these are dependent in part upon the character and the quantity of food that can be obtained. Men of the Bronze Period in Europe were supplanted by a larger-handed and more powerful race, but their success was probably due in a much higher degree to their superiority in the arts. All that is known by savages, as inferred from their traditions and from old monuments, shows that from the most remote times successful tribes have supplanted others. Relics of extinct tribes have been found on the wild plains of America and on the isolated islands in the Pacific Ocean. Civilized nations are everywhere at the present time supplanting barbarous peoples, excepting where climate opposes a fatal barrier, and they thus succeed in a great measure, though not exclusively, through the arts, which are the products of the intellect. With mankind, then, it is highly probable that the intellectual faculties have been gradually perfected through Natural Selection. Undoubtedly it would have been interesting to have traced the development of each separate faculty from the state in which it exists in the lower animals to that in which it exists in man, but this would have been a task of no easy accomplishment. As soon, however, as the progenitors of man became social, and this probably occurred at a very early period, the advancement of the intellectual faculties would have been aided and modified in an important manner, for if one man in a tribe, more sagacious than his fellows, had invented a new snare or a weapon, or other means of attack or defence, the plainest self-interest, with no great help of reasoning power, would have prompted the other members to have imitated him, and thus all would have been profited. Habitual practice of each new art must likewise in some slight degree strengthen the intellect. If the new invention were an important one, the tribe would increase in numbers, spread and supplant other tribes, and thus rendered stronger numerically there would be a better chance of the birth of other superior and inventive members. Should these last be so fortunate as to leave children to inherit their mental superiority, the chance of the birth of still more ingenious members would be somewhat better, and in a very small tribe would be decidedly better.

That primeval man, or his ape-like progenitors, should have become social, they must have acquired the same instinctive feelings which impel other animals to live in a body, and they doubtless exhibited the same general disposition. When separated from their companions, for whom they would have felt some degree of love, they would have experienced a feeling of uneasiness. They would have warned each other of danger, and have given mutual aid in attack or defence. All this implies some degree of sympathy, fidelity and courage. Such social qualities, whose paramount importance to the lower animals is undisputed, were doubtless acquired by the progenitors of men in a similar manner, namely, through Natural Selection, aided by inherited habit. In the never-ceasing wars of savages, fidelity and courage are all-important, and certainly when two tribes of primeval man, living in the same country, came into competition, the one that contained the greatest number of courageous, sympathetic and faithful members, who were ever ready to warn each other of danger, and to assist and defend each other, would without doubt succeed the best and conquer the other. The advantage which disciplined soldiers have over undisciplined hordes follows mainly from the confidence which each soldier has in his comrades. Obedience is of the highest importance, for any form of government is better than none. Selfish and contentious people will not cohere, and without coherence nothing can be effected. Thus, a tribe possessing these qualities in an eminent degree would spread and be victorious over other tribes. But, in the course of events, or all past history is a myth, this successful tribe would in its turn be overcome by some other more highly-endowed tribe; and thus would the social and moral qualities tend slowly to advance and be diffused throughout the world.

Praise and the blame of our fellow-men are much more powerful stimuli to the development of the social qualities. These virtues are primarily due to the instinct of sympathy, and this instinct, like all other social instincts, was doubtlessly acquired through Natural Selection. How early man’s progenitors, in the course of their development, became capable of feeling and being impelled by the praise or blame of their fellow-men, we are unable to say. Even dogs appreciate encouragement, praise and blame, and it would be strange if such could not be predicated of beings higher in the scale. The wildest savages feel the sentiment of glory. This is clearly shown by their preservation of the trophies of their bravery, by their habit of excessive boasting, and even by the extreme care they take of their personal appearance and adornments. Unless, however, they regarded the opinion of their comrades, such habits would be without meaning and senseless. How far the savage experiences remorse, is doubtful. He certainly feels shame and contrition for the breach of some of the lesser rules of his tribe. It is true that remorse is a deeply-hidden feeling, but it is hardly credible that a being who will sacrifice his life rather than betray his tribe, or give himself up as a prisoner rather than violate his parole, would not feel remorse, though he might, if he failed in a duty which he held sacred, hide it from view.

Primeval man must have been, at a very remote time, influenced by the praise and blame of his fellows. That the members of the same tribe would approve of conduct that appeared for the general good, and reprobate such as seemed to carry with it evil, there can be no question. To do good unto others, or to do unto others as you would that they should do unto you, is the foundation-stone of morality. It is, therefore, hardly possible to place too high an estimate upon the importance of the love of praise and fear of blame during rude, barbaric times, for a man, who was not impelled by any profound instinctive feeling to sacrifice his life for the good of others, but who was raised to such a noble action by a sense of glory, would by his example excite a similar wish for glory in the bosoms of other men, and would thereby engender and strengthen by exercise the laudable feeling of admiration. With increased experience and reason, those more remote consequences of his actions, such as temperance, chastity, etc., which during his very early times were utterly disregarded, would come to be highly esteemed or even held sacred. And ultimately there would have been developed from the social instincts a highly-complex sentiment which, largely guided by the approbation of his fellow-men, and ruled by reason, self-interest, and latterly by deep religious feelings, confirmed by teaching and habit, would constitute his moral sense or conscience. Although a high standard of morality gives but little if any advantage to each individual man and his children over the other men of the same tribe, yet it must be borne in mind that it is an advancement in the standard of morality and an increase in the number of well-endowed men that certainly give a telling advantage to a tribe over another, for the tribe that includes many members who, from possessing in an eminent degree the spirit of patriotism, fidelity, obedience, courage and sympathy, and who were always prepared to give aid to each other, and to sacrifice themselves for the common weal, would be victorious over most other tribes. And this would be Natural Selection. Tribes at all times throughout the world have supplanted other tribes. Now, as morality is one element in their success, the standard of morality and the number of well-endowed men will thus everywhere tend to rise and increase.

Very difficult it is to form any judgment why one particular tribe and not another has been successful in the Struggle for Existence and has risen in the scale of civilization. Many savages are still in the same condition of degradation as when first discovered. The greatest part of mankind has never evinced the slightest desire that their civil institutions should be improved. Progress is not, as we are apt to consider, the normal rule in human society. Many concurrent favorable conditions, far too complex to be followed out, seem to determine human progress. A cool climate, it has been remarked, by leading to industry and the various arts, has been indispensable thereto, but if the climate has been too severe, as in the Arctic regions, there is a check to continual progress. Pressed by hard necessity, the Esquimaux have succeeded in many ingenious inventions, but they can never attain, for the reason already assigned, to any very great success. Nomadic habits, whether along the shores of the sea, or over wide plains, or through dense tropical forests, have in all cases proved detrimental. Perhaps, the possession of some property, a fixed abode, and the union of many families under a leader or chief, are indispensable requisites for civilization, as such habits almost necessitate the cultivation of the ground. From some such accident as the falling of the seeds of a fruit-tree on a heap of refuse and producing an unusually fine variety may probably have resulted the first steps in cultivation, for if the fruit were profitable and good for food, it would be a very dull intellect that could not readily perceive, especially among a people that had given up a roving habit of life, the advantage which would accrue from the planting of some more trees of a similar kind. They would undoubtedly be led to cultivation for themselves by a simple observation of the plan by which nature contrives in keeping up a continuation of her many kinds of plants. Instead of dropping the seeds upon the ground as nature is prone to do, and trusting to their burial by accident or otherwise, seeing the advantage to be gained by burying them out of the reach of noxious influences, whether of climate or animal life, they would soon learn to take the matter of planting under their own watchful care rather than leave it to the seemingly thoughtless provision of nature. But the problem of the first advance of palæolithic man toward civilization, is at present much too difficult to be solved, for it involves the consideration of certain elements which we know too little about, and their disentanglement from others whose value is of recognized significance in the domain of biological science.

While it has been shown how it has been possible for primeval man to have acquired a moral sense or conscience, yet it must not be forgotten that the lower animals, at least such as have come under the civilizing influence of man, have also come into possession of the same highly complex sentiment which has been of such inestimable service to man for his progressive advancement. Other faculties, such as the powers of imagination, wonder, curiosity, an undefined sense of beauty, a tendency to imitation, and the love of excitement or novelty, have also been of immense importance in this direction, for they could not fail to have led to the most capricious changes of customs and fashions. Caprice, it has been rather oddly claimed by a recent writer, is “one of the most remarkable and typical differences between savages and brutes.” It is not only possible to perceive how it is that man is capricious, but the lower animals, as has been previously shown, are capricious in their affections, aversions and sense of beauty. And there is good reason to suspect that they love novelty for its own sake. Self-consciousness, individuality, abstraction, general ideas, etc., which have been held by several recent writers as making the sole and complete distinction between man and the brutes, seem useless subjects for discussion, since hardly any two authors agree in their definitions of these high faculties. In man, such faculties could not have been fully developed until his mental powers had advanced to a high state of perfection, and this implies the use of a highly-developed language. No one supposes that one of the lower animals reflects whence he comes or whither he goes, or what is death or what is life, but can one feel sure that an old dog with an excellent memory, and some power of imagination as shown by his dreams, never reflects on his past pleasures in the chase? And this would be a form of self-consciousness. On the contrary, as Büchner ably remarks, how little can the hard-worked wife of an Australian savage who scarcely uses any abstract words and whose ability to count does not extend beyond four, exert her self-consciousness, or reflect on the origin, nature and aim of her own existence. That animals retain their mental individuality is unquestioned, for when any voice awakens a train of old associations in the mind of some favorite dog, as in the case of my dog Frisky, already referred to, he must have retained his mental individuality, although every atom of his brain had probably undergone change more than once during the five or six years he lived in my family. Animals have some ideas of numbers. The crow has been known to count as far as the number six, and a dog I once had knew as well as I did when Saturday came. The sense of beauty, which has been declared peculiar to man, is innate in birds. Certain bright colors and certain sounds, when in harmony, excite in them pleasure as they do in man. The taste for the beautiful, at least so far as female beauty is concerned, is not of a special nature in the human mind, for it differs widely in the different races of man, and is not quite the same even in the different nations of the same race. If we are to judge from the hideous ornaments and the equally hideous music admired by most savages, it might be urged that their æsthetic faculty was less highly developed than it is in some species of birds. No animal, it is obvious, would be capable of admiring the nocturnal heaven, a beautiful landscape, or refined music. And this should not be wondered at, for such high tastes, dependent as they are upon culture and complex associations, are not even enjoyed by barbarous or by uneducated persons.

Seeing that man in a state of nature has no preëminence above the lower animals so far as his mental and moral qualities are concerned, and in many instances ranks far below the so-called brute, let us examine fora short time his religious nature. No evidence exists to show that man was aboriginally endowed with the ennobling belief in the existence of an Omnipotent God. On the contrary, ample evidence, not from hasty travellers, but from men who have long resided with savages, can be adduced to show that numerous races have existed, and still exist, who have no idea of one or more gods, and who have no words in their languages to express such an idea. If under the term religion is included the belief in unseen or spiritual agencies, the case is entirely different, for this belief seems to be almost universal with the less civilized races. Nor is it difficult to understand how it originated. With the development of the imagination, wonder and curiosity, and of a moderate power of reasoning, man would naturally have craved to understand what was going on around him, and even have vaguely speculated on his own existence. According to McLennan man must, in his efforts to arrive at some explanation of the phenomena of life, feign for himself. Judging from the universality of this life, the same author remarks that “the simplest hypothesis, and the first to occur to men, seems to have been that natural phenomena are ascribable to the presence in animals, plants and things, and in the forces of nature, of such spirits prompting to action as men are conscious they themselves possess.” Probably, as has been clearly shown by Tyler, dreams may have first given rise to the notion of spirits. Savages do not readily discriminate between subjective and objective phenomena. When a savage dreams, the figures which appear in his vision are believed to have come from a distance and to stand over him, or the soul of the dreamer goes out on a journey and returns with a remembrance of what has been seen. That tendency in savages to imagine that natural objects and agencies are animated by living or spiritual beings may be illustrated by a little fact which I have frequently noticed. Standing on the corner of a street, waiting for a closed snow-sweeper, which was driven by electricity, to pass, my attention was directed to a young horse that was geared to a hansom. The horse was at rest, and its driver, evidently awaiting some one, sat upon the box. Upon the appearance of the sweeper the horse reared, turned his face directly toward the object of his fear, pawed the pavement in the most impatient manner possible, and then looked wistfully and pleadingly at his master, as though imploring protection from some fearful and gigantic monster. Another sweeper passed while I was still in waiting, and the poor animal went through the same trying and fearful ordeal as before. He must, I think, have reasoned in a rapid and unconscious manner, that movement without any apparent cause indicated the presence of some strange living agent, which was about to do him some serious physical harm. Belief in spiritual agencies would thus easily pass into a belief in the existence of one or more gods, for savages would naturally ascribe to spirits the same passions, the same line of vengeance or simple form of justice, and the same affections which they themselves experienced.

Religious devotion is a highly complex feeling. Love, complete submission to an exalted and mysterious superior, a strong sense of dependence, fear, reverence, gratitude, hope for the future and other elements enter into its composition. No being could experience so complex an emotion unless his intellectual and moral faculties had attained a moderately high level. Some approach to this high state of mind is visible in the profound love of a dog for his master, for it is associated with complete submission, some fear, reverence, gratitude and perhaps other feelings. A dog’s behavior towards his master, after a long absence, is widely different from that which he shows towards his fellows, for his transports of joy in the latter case are less intense, and his every action savors of a mere sense of equality. But upon his master, as Prof. Braubach goes so far as to maintain, he looks as on a god.

These high mental faculties, which first led man to believe in unseen spiritual agencies, and subsequently in fetishism, polytheism and monotheism, would infallibly lead him, as long as his reasoning powers remained at a very low level, to various strange superstitions and customs, many of which, such as the sacrifice of human beings to a blood-loving god and the trial of innocent persons by the ordeal of poison or fire, are too terrible to contemplate. It is well, however, to reflect occasionally on these superstitions, for they show us what an infinite debt of gratitude we owe to improved reason, science and accumulated knowledge. How much better is the life of civilized man than that of the savage, for as Lubbock has well remarked, “it is not too much to say that the horrible dread of unknown evil hangs like a thick cloud over savage life, and embitters every pleasure.”

From the opinions advanced, it is evident that the belief in God has been the ultimate outcome of belief in unseen spiritual agencies. There has been a gradual leading up through fetishism and polytheism to monotheism. If religion implies belief in unseen agencies, as well as belief in a personal agency in the universe strong enough to influence conduct in any degree, then it is obvious that there has been a progressive advancement in religious thought, each succeeding form of religion by its superior advantages over its predecessor tending to supplant it wherever and whenever its beneficent influences are felt. It is true that fetishism and polytheism still prevail among rude, uncultured peoples, as well as the worship of false deities and prophets, but with the spread of the civilizing and elevating influence of Christianity these religions in the fitness of time will disappear. Christianity, from its foundation in Judaism, has throughout been a religion of sacrifice and sorrow. It has been a religion of blood and tears, and yet one of profoundest happiness to its votaries. While fakirs hang on hooks, and pagans cut themselves and even their children, for the sake of propitiating diabolical deities, yet Christianity, which has its roots in Judaism, has no need for such practices. It is par excellence the religion of sorrow, because it reaches to truer and deeper levels of our spiritual nature, and therefore has capabilities both of sorrow and joy which are presumably non-existent except in civilized man. They are the sorrows and joys which arise from the fully-developed consciousness of sin against a God of Love, as distinguished from propitiation of malignant spirits. These joys and sorrows are wholly spiritual, not merely physical. “Thou desirest no sacrifice.” God’s only sacrifice at the hands of sinful man is a troubled spirit.

Estimated by the influence which He has exerted on mankind, there can be no question, even from a secular point of view, that Christ is much the greatest man who has ever lived. That the revolution which His teachings have effected in human life is immeasurable and unparalleled by any other movement in history is unquestioned. Though most nearly approached by the religion of the Jews, of which it is a development, so that it may be regarded as of a piece with it, it is evident that this whole system of religion is so immeasurably in advance of all others that it may be truthfully said, if it had not been for the Jews, the human race would have had no religion worthy of serious consideration. Had it not been for this religion man’s spiritual side would not have been developed in civilized life. And although there are numberless individuals who are all unconscious of its development in themselves, yet these have been influenced to an enormous extent by the religious atmosphere by which they are surrounded.

Not only is Christianity so immeasurably in advance of all other religions, but it is no less of every other system of thought that has ever been promulgated in regard to what is moral and spiritual. Neither philosophy, science nor poetry has ever produced results in thought, conduct or beauty in any degree comparable with it. What has science or philosophy done for the thought of mankind compared with what has been done by the single doctrine, “God is love?” The Story of the Cross, from its commencement in prophetic aspiration to its culmination in the Gospel, is preëminently the most magnificent presentation in literature. Only to a man wholly destitute of religious perception can Christianity fail to appear the greatest exhibition of the beautiful, the sublime, and of all else that appeals to our spiritual nature, which has ever been known upon the earth. It is not only adapted to men of the highest culture, but the most remarkable thing about it is its perfect adaptation to all sorts and conditions of men. Its problems, historical and philosophical, open up to you worlds of material, over which you may spend your life with the same interminable interest as the student meets in the fields of natural science.

Whatever our theory of the origin of man, there can be no doubt that we all feel that his intellectual part is higher than the animal; and that the moral is higher than the intellectual, whatever our theory of either may be; and that the spiritual is higher than the moral, whatever our theory of religion may be. It is what is understood by his moral, and still more by his spiritual qualities, that make up what is called his character, and, astonishing to say, it is character that tells in the long run. Morality and spirituality are two different things, for a man may be highly moral in conduct without being in any degree spiritual in nature, and the reverse, though to a less extent. Objectively, the same distinction subsists between morals and religion. Intellectual pleasures are more satisfying and enduring than sensual, or even sensuous; and spiritual, to those who have experienced them, than intellectual, an objective fact, abundantly testified to by those who have had experience, which seems to indicate that the spiritual nature of man is the highest part of man—the culminating point of his being. That there will always be materialists and spiritualists, as Renan says, is probably true, inasmuch as it will always be observable on the one hand that there is no thought without brain, while, on the other hand, the instincts of man will always aspire to higher beliefs. If religion is true, and life is a state of probation, this is just what ought to be. It is not probable that the materialistic position, which is discredited even by philosophy, is due simply to custom and a want of imagination. Else why the inextinguishable instincts which we have thus shown to exist?

ERA OF MIND AND HEART.
Things as They Will Exist in a Future Earth-Life.

Evolution, not only of the earth, but of its organic machinery, by natural causes, is now no longer doubted. That this has taken place by degrees is equally unquestioned. Now, if there is a Deity, the fact is certainly of the nature of a first principle, and it must be first of all first principles. No one can dispute this, nor can any one dispute the necessary conclusion that, if there be a Deity, he is knowable, if knowable at all, by intuition and not by reason. From its very nature, as a little thought is sufficient to show, reason is utterly incapable of adjudicating on the subject, for it is a process of inferring from the known to the unknown. It would be against reason itself to suppose that Deity, even if He exists, can be known by reason. He must be known, if knowable at all, by intuition. If there is a Deity, then it seems to be in some indefinite degree more probable that He should impart a Revelation than that He should not have done so. As a mere matter of evidence, a sudden revelation might be much more convincing than a gradual one, but it would be quite out of analogy with causation in nature. Besides, a gradual one might be given easily, and of demonstrative value, as by making prophecies of historical events, scientific discoveries and other things so clear as to be unmistakable. But a demonstrative revelation has not been made, and there may well be good reasons why it should not have been made. If there are such reasons, as, for example, our state of probation, we can well see “that the gradual unfolding of a plan of revelation, from earliest dawn of history to the end of the world, is much preferable to a sudden manifestation sufficiently late in the world’s history to be historically attested for all subsequent time.” Gradual evolution, as has been said before, is in analogy with God’s other work. If Revelation has been of a progressive character, then it follows that it must have been so not only historically, but intellectually, morally and spiritually, for in such sequence could it be always adapted to the advancing conditions of the human race.

Thus it will be seen that all through the ages some mighty influence has been at work, directly or indirectly, in preparing this earth by slow and gradual changes for a steadily progressive succession of vegetable and animal life. That life best fitted to meet new and changing conditions of environment being preserved by a process of natural selection. And from a few primordial types, far simpler than the lowest of existing structureless moners, or from some living protoplasmic mass, elaborated by some form of energy acting upon inorganic nature, there have been evolved in the millions of years of earth-life our existing flora and fauna. Man, the pinnacle of animal life, has come up through the life that preceded him, and bears in the history of his development from the ovum to the adult state the line of his descent. Not only has his physical nature been evolved through the action of natural laws impressed upon living matter by Deity, but that subtle principle, termed mind, which has attained such a wonderful growth in his civilized condition, is but the outcome of the mind of a long line of life antecedent to his appearance on the globe. His moral nature was similarly acquired, and most probably in the manner already explained. Palæolithic man, like the Australian of to-day, was, as has been shown, but little superior in intelligence to some of the animals with whom he was contemporaneous. He lived the life of the mere animal, and as an animal could be said to have had no preëminence above a beast. Like the latter, he was a living, breathing frame, or body of life; a living, but not an everliving, soul. In time, as conditions became favorable, he passed into the moral stage of his being, but not without increased intellectuality, and would thus have continued, but going on and adding to his mental and moral possessions, had not Deity, in the fitness of time, prepared the way through Christ, whereby his corruptible nature should be made incorruptible and immortal. Unless man is “born of the spirit” he cannot inherit the kingdom of God. He must be “changed into spirit,” put on incorruptibility and immortality of body, or he will be physically incapable of retaining the honor, glory and power of the kingdom forever, or even during Christ’s reign of a thousand years upon earth.

That there is a distinction between a living soul and a spiritual body cannot be questioned. Speaking about body, the apostle Paul says, “there is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body, but he does not content himself with simply declaring this truth, but goes further and proves it by quoting the language of Moses, saying, “for so it is written, the first man Adam was made into a living soul;” and then adding, “the last Adam into a spirit giving life.” And in another place, speaking of the latter, he says of Him, “now the Lord is the spirit. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord, are changed into His image from glory into glory, as by the Lord the Spirit.” Therefore, the proof of the apostle’s proposition, that there is a natural body as distinct from a spiritual body, lies in the testimony that “Adam was made into a living soul,” showing that he considered a natural, or animal body, and a living soul, as one and the same thing. If he did not, then there was no proof in the quotation of what he affirmed. Mortality, then, is life manifested through a corruptible body, and immortality is life manifested through an incorruptible body. Hence, the necessity laid down in the saying of the apostle, “this corruptible body must put on incorruption, and this mortal put on immortality,” before death can be “swallowed up in victory,”—a doctrine of “life and incorruptibility” that was new to the Greeks and Romans, and brought to light only through the gospel of the kingdom and name of Jesus Christ. To them it was foolishness, and to many at the present day incredible, because they do not understand the glad tidings of the age to come. God could have created all things upon a spiritual or incorruptible basis at once, but in that case the globe would have been filled with men and women equal to the angels in nature, power and intellect, and hence would have been without a history, and its population characterless. And this would not have been according to His plan, for in it the animal must precede the spiritual just as surely as the acorn must precede the oak. The Bible has to do with things and not with imaginations; with bodies and not phantasms; with living souls of every species; with corporeal beings of other worlds, and with incorruptible and undying men, but is as silent as the grave about such souls as men pretend to cure. For the sons of Adam to become sons of God, they must be the subjects of an adoption, which is attainable only by a divinely appointed means. It must be by a process of selection. “Since by a man came death, by a man also came a resurrection of dead persons. For as in the Adam they all die, so also in the Christ shall they all be made alive. But every one in his order. Christ the first fruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at His coming.” Here it is obvious that the apostle is not writing of all the individuals of the human race, but only such that become the subject of a pardon of life. It is true that all men do die, but it is not true that they are all the subject of pardon. Those who are pardoned are “the many,” who are sentenced to live forever. The sentence to pardon of life is through Jesus Christ who in pouring out His blood upon the cross, was made a sacrifice for sin. “He was delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification,” that is, for the pardon of those who believe the gospel. As it is written, “he that believeth the gospel, and is baptized, shall be saved.” Hence, “the obedience of faith” is made the condition of righteousness, and this obedience implies the existence of a “law of faith,” as attested by that of Moses, which is “the law of works.” Having believed the gospel and been baptized, such a person is required to “walk worthy of the vocation,” or calling, “wherewith he has been called,” that by so doing he may be “accounted worthy” of being “born of spirit,” that he may become “spirit,” or a spiritual body, and so enter the kingdom of God, crowned with “glory, honor, incorruptibility and life.” From all the above, it must be obvious to the unbiassed mind, that all will not arise to newness of life, “for as many of you, as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ, and if ye be Christ’s, then are ye the seed of Abraham, and heirs according to the promise.” When they have been thus baptized, then they have received the spirit of adoption, or have been elected into God’s family, and then they can address God as their Father who is in heaven.

Thus adopted into God’s family through faith in Jesus Christ, it must not be supposed that they have attained to that perfect condition of knowing all that is to be known. New glories will continually open up to their admiring vision, and new facts be revealed through the eternity of futurity. Man will carry his earth-acquired knowledge into the other world, and little by little will he add to his fund. Those who have made the best of their time in their probationary existence, will rank as much above their fellows in the heaven-life as they did in the earth-life, and like the others will reach up to higher acquirements. There will be no equalization of talents, capacities and possessions, but each will be satisfied with his own, and all will endeavor to be as like unto Christ as the conditions of their heavenly environment will permit. There will be grades of ability and character in the new life, but all of the very highest standard when measured by what prevails in the earth-life. This is the teaching of the Scriptures. “There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for one star differeth from another star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead.”

Now as to the part that animals and plants shall figure in the new existence. Revelation, as has been seen, was given to man. This does not imply that the lower forms of life were not made “partakers of the divine nature.” When man was placed upon this earth, or rather when in the sequence of events, which was brought about by the prescribed scheme of Divinity, he appeared upon the earth, he was given the control of all the creatures of God’s hands, to rule them as his judgment seemed best. They were a necessary part of the plan of creation. God gave the man directions concerning them, and what they are, and we refer to the domesticated species especially, they have thus been made through man’s wise, intelligent and thoughtful selection. This has been the instrument through which God has worked in building up a history and a character for the humbler works of His hands. That they shall pass into the future life with him, at least such as have shown their fitness to endure, there can be no doubt in the mind of any one who pauses a few brief moments in the rush and turmoil of everyday life and considers the matter with all due seriousness. All existence, as we have elsewhere claimed, is a unit. All life, like all love, is divine. There can nothing exist that does not contain some sort of development of soul. There is no escape from this assertion. Instead of isolating ourselves then from the humbler creatures of God’s workmanship, let us recognize them as our kin and include them in the grand scheme of redemption, and as partakers with us in the future state of Divine Love and in higher and endlessly higher development and progress.